This eulogy was delivered by
Eugene Ashton, chief executive of Jonathan Ball Publishers, in memory of Jonathan Ball, who died on 3 April 2021, at a remembrance service held at the Our Lady of the Visitation Catholic Church in Constantia, Cape Town.
Jonathan was, more than anything else, a publisher. He lived in the world of ideas and understood the value of them. In a career that spanned 50 years, he never wavered from his ideal, striving for a liberal sanity. At heart he was a pugilist, as a young boy with his fists, as a man with his ideas. Every encounter with Jon either expanded on the last conversation or picked up a new thread – the importance of the Enlightenment and England's role in it – being one of our last week-long conversations.